This is a new test post to see if it gets a title. :)
Performance Matters - amazing talk on benchmarking, profiling, why everything you think you know might be wrong and some amazing tools to help.
This kind of thing is exactly why I’m still scared of Let’s Encrypt. It’s seamless and automatic — right up until it’s not.
Link: www.theverge.com/2019/12/3…
Why does trading up require customers to permanently brick a functional product? Therein lies the controversy. The 30 percent discount is directly tied to the demise of a piece of hardware. For Sonos, this process seems less about “trading up” and more about ditching your old device and clearing room for a new one.
Interesting when you hear Sonos answer, it does makes a little sense to me.
The worst part, though, is that I don’t actually care about pants or pillows or travel mugs. I just want to be a man with warm coffee, a covered crotch, and no neck pain. Mediocre products would suffice.
Lol.
Macs should last much longer than 4 years. If larger numbers of them fail due to a design or manufacturing problem, Apple should recall them and replace them with a fixed version. Instead, they tried to keep the problem a secret and ran out the clock.
More bad Apple.
Link: www.theverge.com/2019/12/1…
Shame on Apple. Maybe I’m just falling out of love but it seems Apple comes out looking a big bully a lot more than they used to.
Link: mjtsai.com/blog/2019…
By that he means a new iPhone-scale device, which is an unrealistic expectation. Apple Watch and AirPods are certainly blockbusters.
True and true. Expecting Apple to release world changing products every few years is setting the bar crazy high.
Sad. **Nothing drives me nuts more than people who don’t know how to be present. ** Yes, sometimes I’m that person, but I really am more observant about it than most people I know.
Link: Filmmaker Mode
Finally. Maybe time to get a TV again? LOL.
Link: Logged off: meet the teens who refuse to use social media
Maybe there is some hope for the world after all…
It is widely believed that young people are hopelessly devoted to social media. Teenagers, according to this stereotype, tweet, gram, Snap and scroll. But for every young person hunched over a screen, there are others for whom social media no longer holds such an allure. These teens are turning their backs on the technology – and there are more of them than you might think.
Link: The Stranding of the MV Shokalskiy
When you think you’re having a bad day…
At one point on the return journey, Mawson fell through a snow bridge and found himself dangling by his sled harness over a void. The exhausted explorer had to pull himself up along fourteen feet of frozen rope, one knot at a time. When he reached the lip of the crevasse, it gave way, precipitating him down the full length of his harness again.
With his fingers numb and clothes full of snow, he managed the climb a second time, and lay motionless on the edge for an hour before finding the strength to get up. After that, he made himself a kind of rope ladder, and while subsequent falls never became a highlight of his day, they at least grew somewhat less lethal.
Link: The Kindle is fine. It could’ve been much more than that.
Frommer says the Kindle is mediocre, and that’s absolutely true. Amazon’s approach to Kindle software updates has been erratic at best and absent at worst, … … The interface is inelegant and in so many ways unchanged from its original release in 2007… … Typography on the Kindle is still mediocre, despite minor advances … … support for library borrowing is hidden, because Amazon really wants you to buy books.
Amazing how so many people love these devices yet how very poor they are in so many areas… Does this really speak to the strength of e-ink as a technology or more to the pleasure of reading without distractions?
When Google puts 4 paid ads ahead of the first organic result…
Basecamp, always impressing.
Link: You People Made Me Give Up My Peanut Farm Before I Got To Be President
Jimmy Carter: Boy, times sure have changed, haven’t they? I couldn’t help but notice that the current occupant of the White House owns more than 500 companies, has business interests across the Middle East and Asia, and owes hundreds of millions of dollars to banks he is now responsible for regulating. It seems a touch unfair that a bigger fuss was made about my little peanut operation than all his office towers, hotels, and golf courses combined. All I had was a farm, you know?
LOL. Worth a read.
Link: Part of the problem is iOS itself…
Apps need constant maintenance to just keep running and working because, else they break.
This is the kind of thing that keeps me away from iOS/Mac development every time I think about it.
Put a simple web app online 10 years ago, and it can still function just fine today… perhaps with zero changes (depending). But man the work to keep up with iOS/Watch OS/Mac OS looks to be pretty spectacular.
Link: Should the web be archive.org?
Glad someone is thinking about this. Link rot is real and it sucks.
Link: Some obscure C features
C looks kind of crazy. :) Although I guess they do say “obscure”.
More fodder for #whywecanthavenicethings.
Link: The (not so) hidden cost of sharing code between iOS and Android
Until very recently, Dropbox had a technical strategy on mobile of sharing code between iOS and Android via C++. The idea behind this strategy was simple—write the code once in C++ instead of twice in Java and Objective C. …
We have now completely backed off from this strategy in favor of using each platforms’ native languages (primarily Swift and Kotlin, which didn’t exist when we started out). This decision was due to the (not so) hidden cost associated with code sharing.
Feels like just another case of simple winning out over clever, even if it initially looks like simple is “more effort”.
Overly clever solutions often have hidden costs than simple solutions do not.
But if most people aren’t good at the job, while a minority of people are much better (i.e. variance in output is high), then getting the 1000th job applicant could be almost as useful as getting the 100th, if both are being drawn from the same distribution.
Interesting quick read.
Link: Facebook and Microsoft Contractors Listen to Recordings, Too
Say goodbye to your privacy. It is a thing of a yesteryear, a bygone era. Every time I read something like this I think about unplugging my Amazon Alexa’s, but then my iPhone and iPad would still be constantly listening, so… can’t win.
Link: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy
This document describes the web tracking practices that WebKit believes, as a matter of policy, should be prevented by default by web browsers. These practices are harmful to users because they infringe on a user’s privacy without giving users the ability to identify, understand, consent to, or control them.
I need to get back to using Webkit more. I really like Opera but it seems to crash randomly (rarely, yet concistently) when submitting forms - very frustrating.
Link: OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock
Another $300+ dock. This one gives you a passthrough Thunderbolt port, a Mini DisplayPort, and a single USB-C port. How about just putting more ports on the computer?
Wholly agree, it’s getting a little ridiculous. I’m still very happy with my 2015 Macbook Pro and waiting to see what Apple does this fall with the new rumored 16” model. I would not buy one of the new laptops they sell now (though mostly for keyboard feel/issues more than ports).